A new Rasmussen poll (HERE) asks if the current health-care bill will cost more than the estimates:
81% Yes (including 66% which says it’s very likely).
10% No.
How will the bill affect the deficit?
66% Increase it.
10% Reduce it.
14% No impact.
The economists are really starting to bash Obama over his fiscal irresponsibility. MANKIW recently posted this on his blog:
Remember, Bush averaged a deficit of about $250B per year. Obama’s deficits according to the CBO will be many times that for as far as the eye can see. This is grossly irresponsible and simply not sustainable in the long-run.
PERRY posted this at his blog:
He noted that according to the USA Today, the government is paying on average a 20% higher wage than similar private sector jobs, and is paying 4 times as much on benefits.
The fact that Obama is growing the government and deficits so quickly and so greatly is not surprising. What is surprising to me is that so many people thought he would do otherwise.
The fact that so many people bought into this ‘change’ and ‘hope’ hype speaks volumes as to the naviete of the American voter. They believed that Obama was going to be fiscally responsible when he told them that he was going to be, just as they believed that Bill Clinton had not had sex with that woman.
It will be shameful for this nation to allow Obama/Pelosi/Reid to spend this nation into ruin. I’m confident that in November the voters will choose a new direction. But until then Obama will spend every dime he can. Wait until a new agriculture bill comes across his desk. Wait until a new highway bill does.
I can see how the 20% of America that is liberal can get a guy into the Oval Office every now and then. Carter was our last liberal president. I cannot see how they can retain that office over the long-term. That’s not going to happen until the day comes where American’s stop worrying about their children’s future. I don’t think that day is here yet…
If one were to pick any group of people to engineer a society, I assert that lawyers from expensive private schools would be just about the last group of people on Earth that you would want to choose. In fact, I say it would be irrational to expect them to be great architects of a successful society.
Why?
Well, they went to school to learn how to convince people to demand that someone should hand over money to someone else. That’s not the skill set you should want in someone who is given the job to run a country.
All these lawyers (Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama, etc.) don’t understand even the very basics of economics. They don’t understand the basics of system knowledge. They were never taught supply and demand at any depth approaching what a world leader should know. What they do understand is how to convince people to agree to take away money from someone else.
Since they’ve almost all come from elite schools they have an enormous disconnect with real people. They certainly don’t know how to balance a simple checkbook (because they’ve never had to). They haven’t spent years in a normal working environment where freeloaders hold the whole organization back. In their mind, freeloaders don’t exist. After all, they’ve never seen one. What they have done is spent years with small groups of other elitists who share their view that lawyers are the chosen people.
It’s fascinating to watch what’s happening to our government now that it’s almost in complete control of these lawyers. It’s truly scary. We have a budget problem – well just spend more money and raise the tax rate on capital! Why not?
I can understand why two major groups of people would support these lawyers as leaders of the free world. The first would be young people without enough life experience to know better. The second would be freeloaders, because it’s in their own self-interest to have elitist lawyers rule the nation.
I think we’re in for some very troubled times unless the 80% of the nation that isn’t liberal stand up to the left-wing lawyers who have been put in charge of the nation. It’s fascinating to watch, but scary indeed.
According to New York Magazine HERE, this great skit was just cut from the Academy Awards:
Our insider informs us that Baron Cohen planned to appear onstage as a blue-skinned, female Na’vi, with Stiller translating “her” interplanetary speech. As the skit went on, though, it would become clear that Stiller wasn’t translating properly, because Cohen would grow ever more upset. At its climax, an infuriated Baron Cohen would pull open “her” evening gown to reveal that s/he was pregnant, knocked up with Cameron’s love child, and would go on to confront her baby daddy as if s/he were on Jerry Springer.
I haven’t blogged in a few days, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of topics to talk about. Been a little busy but I’ve got to take the time to vent a little.
While watching John Stossel’s show yesterday I learned a few things about the Washington D.C. Public School System:
1. The Teacher’s Union doesn’t allow teachers to stay in the schools past 3:15pm – work rules! (The leader of the D.C. Teacher’s Union tried to state this wasn’t true, but he used Bill Clintoneseque language so I don’t think he was telling the truth).
2. Three years into the voucher program (the one that Obama killed because of union pressure), kids in the voucher program were showing improvement over their counterparts in government schools.
3. That voucher program cost taxpayers only $7,500 per student, about half of what the District spends per student in government schools.
4. When spots open up at successful charter schools in poor minority districts like D.C. or Harlem, people line up around the block to enter their kids into lotteries to get into these schools. Unfortunately, just a small fraction get the chance to get into schools not controlled by the teacher unions.
5. There are real violence problems in the D.C. government schools. The non-government schools, not-so-much.
I wonder if anyone has run a study showing how many kids have been enslaved to lives of poverty because of the teacher unions….
Wow, were they fun this year. Congrats to the U.S. for winning the medal count and for Canada for doing so well on their home turf.
Here’s my list of favorite moments:
1. U.S. winning the preliminary match against Canada (hockey).
2. U.S. winning the 4 man bobsled gold (I’ve been waiting my whole life for that to happen).
3. Everything Lindsey Vonn (including the swimsuit picts).
4. Shaun White’s amazing air.
5. Evan Lysacek kicking the Russian’s ass.
And my least favorite moments:
1. The Georgian kicking the bucket.
2. The U.S. losing to the Canadians in the gold medal match (hockey).
3. NBC’s lack of live coverage.
4. The opening ceremonies where my Tivo ran out while a sweating Gretzky was holding a torch waiting for the cauldron to rise.
5. The U.S. curlers losing every damn match that I watched live.
I absolutely love the Olympics. It’s so cool to learn these athletes’ stories in a couple short weeks and watch them strive for glory. My hope is that at some point in my life I’ll be able to spend a couple weeks at a Summer and Winter Olympics. But for now all I can hope for is more live coverage by NBC.
I hope the Americans can continue to compete at such a high level. I’m sure it all comes down to funding. Hopefully some millionaires with extra coins in their pockets take interest in the American Bobsled Team and fund them to the fullest.
London is only 879 days away! Can’t wait…
It’s been a very sad couple of months, with the 7.0 Haiti quake killing at least 230,000, and the 8.8 Chilean quake which probably killed several tens of thousands.
What is so bothersome to me is that the vast majority of these deaths could have been prevented if these countries had been stable capitalistic democracies with pro-growth agendas over the last 100 years.
If a 7 or 8 magnitude quake hit Los Angeles (and one day soon it certainly will), there will be lots of damage and many deaths. But there’s not going to be hundreds of thousands of deaths.
The ‘95 Kobe 6.8 quake did cause over $1B in damage, but cost only 6,434 lives. The ‘94 Northridge 6.4 quake did cause $20B in damage but only cost 72 lives. That’s not to say there wouldn’t be a greater loss of life if those earthquakes were 8.0’s. But these major metropolitan areas took direct hits and survived.
When the 7.6 Kasmir quake hit in ‘05, it killed 79,000.
Countries like Pakistan, Chile, and Haiti, are unfortunately paying for their historical lack of free market principles. The longer it takes for countries to hop on the free market bandwagon, the more incidents we’ll have when a 100,000 people die instead of 100 or 1,000.
Chile is much richer than Haiti because it has embraced free market principles stronger than Haiti has. As such its loss of life will be less. Hopefully in 50 years Chile will be much richer and when the next big one hits the loss of life will be only a few dozen. As for Haiti, God only knows when that country will get on the right track so when the next big one hits, unfortunately we’ll probably lose another quarter of a million…
…is the title of an article which can be read HERE.
So Electronic Arts is losing money. What’s the significance?
Several years ago, the NCAA and the NFL allowed EA to sign exclusive deals to produce their football games. The result?
Without competition there was little incentive for EA to improve their product each year. Year after the year the same mind-blowing bugs ended up in the games. Year after year the improvements on the games were minimal. Without competition from Sega, there just wasn’t enough reason to fork out $60 to buy the games because the yearly improvements were so marginal.
When competition is stifled, consumers lose. That’s the lesson. And in this particular case, someone else is losing too. Electronic Arts…
I’ve been excited to see ‘Shutter Island’ for some time. This movie kept making headlines since its inception, from the record pre-sales needed to get it made, to Paramount’s decision not to release it in December, supposedly because they didn’t have the money for a big Oscar marketing campaign.
The movie takes place in 1954, and follows a U.S. Marshal (DiCaprio) as he visits a mental hospital on a secluded island to investigate the disappearance of a patient. The first act of the movie to me was the best as we’re introduced to the very creepy island and its inhabitants. The story and tone are set, and both are ripe for a great mystery ride for the audience.
Then at the beginning of act 2, Dicaprio’s partner (Mark Ruffalo) gives out what may or may not be the big twist in the movie and essentially destroys the suspense from that point on. It’s really fucked up.
The rest of act 2 is a mix of more discoveries on the island and multiple dream sequences that drag on way too long.
By the 3rd act we reach a resolution in a very long and drawn out fashion. I left the theatre highly disappointed.
I love the concept. I love the acting. I love the dark cinematography. I love the tone. I love the haunting score. I hated the pace.
The pace just didn’t resonate with me at all. The dream sequences were far too long. Way too much was given away far too early. The scenes of DiCaprio shaking in anguish lasted forever.
That being said, maybe this type of pacing worked for some movie-goers. It just fell flat to me.
However, everything but the pace is probably enough to go see this movie. It’s not as good as ‘The Aviator’ or ‘The Departed,’ but what director can make nothing but masterpieces? It is a solid mystery thriller.
My IMBD rating: 7 out of 10. If it was 100 minutes instead of 138 minutes, it would have been a notch higher.
UofM economist Dr. Perry has been discussing Washington D.C. school costs over the last couple days at his BLOG.
What has been widely documented is the complete failure of the school system to actually teach students much of anything. In 2008, 36% of students were proficient in math, and 39% in reading. The graduation rate is 65.5% (‘05-’06).
So what do we, the American taxpayers, spend for this incredible success?
Perry puts it in perspective. Perhaps the most prestigious school in the world (Harvard) charges $32,550 for tuition (2009). Washington D.C. spends $28,170 per pupil. The $1.29 billion that D.C. spends on its public schools is just shy of the entire GDP of Belize.
Perry goes on to add that from 1919 to 2006, the Consumer Price Index of all goods increased 12 times. For public school spending, it increased 234 times.
We’re spending more and more for education, and in large urban districts where the unions are in control, we’re getting absolutely pathetic results. This is the power of government.
Fortunately, like in many other districts, D.C. has been having some success with charter schools. Of course Obama canceled the voucher program which had good results as well.
It just blows my mind how the American Left wants to keep pouring more and more money into systems that are absolutely non-effective in doing what they were created to do. Can you imagine the quality education those kids in D.C. could get if that money was spent on vouchers instead? The private sector could give those kids a chance at breaking the strong poverty cycles that they were born into.
But it’s obvious that would cost generations of Democratic votes to go to another party, and we can’t allow that to happen, now can we?
…riding a mf-ing moose across a river. You didn’t mess with that player…
When I swim my laps at the health club at night, I’m usually listening to Dennis Prager on my mp3 player. While Dennis often talks about politics, he just as often talks about life. I’ve rarely heard anyone give greater insight.
A couple very important life lessons that I’ve learned from Dennis are:
1. You have a moral obligation to be happy, because if you’re not happy you’re having a negative effect on the people around you.
2. Maturity largely comes from having gratitude.
I’ve always felt very good around people who are happy and around people who show gratitude. And I’ve never really cared much to be around people who are terminally unhappy and who never show gratitude.
People who smile make me happy. Hence my insight:
A good rough indicator of a person’s maturity level is the frequency in which they smile.
It’s not a perfect indicator, but I do believe that there’s a correlation between the amount of time people smile and their gratitude in general.
Being a grumpy-ass however is a sure sign of immaturity.
…at 11:30am there was only one person in line. One! In the sixteen years I’ve been in California I don’t think I’ve ever gone to a post office where there was only one person in line. What’s going on today? Is there some mandatory public event? A free concert somewhere? Is someone giving away cookies?
I usually don’t mind when there’s 20 people in line at the post office because there’s rarely anyone at the automated machine which is so easy to use a mentally challenged monkey could figure it out. In fact I like to wave at all the people standing in line who would rather wait for 30 minutes than press a few buttons on their own.
I had actually tried to go to the post office around 10am yesterday but the parking lot was completely full so I just drove through. And now today there was only one person in line.
I just though I had to document this extraordinary occasion.
Recently I finished reading ‘Why Does E=MC²?’ by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw. Brian is a young astrophysicist that is often seen on The Science Channel, especially on shows regarding quantum physics and/or CERN.
In the first 2/3 of the book, Cox goes through a few thought experiments that all eventually show that Energy actually does equal Mass x The Speed of Light². The logic is intriguing and pretty simple, however in each there’s a bit of mathematical work that he skips over way too quickly to give the non-mathematician a good understanding.
A good example is in one thought experiement you get to a point where you have to use the Pythagorean theorem to solve for a distance. However A² = B² + C² doesn’t seem to work. So he uses A² = B² – C², and just briefly mentions that in some sort of geometry that is non-Euclidean, that’s a legitimate formula. Well, that type of stuff left me empty while reading the book. I would have liked a few more pages explaining the steps that aren’t quite so obvious.
In the last third of the book he covers the elementary particles (quarks, photons, etc.) and the master equation. He doesn’t dig deep into the math and for good reason as it’s a pretty dense and long equation. But he does give us an insight into how all the particles interact with each other which is a pretty fun read for quantum physic nuts.
This is definitely a book for people who love science, and in particular, quantum physics. It is dumbed down a bit too much. But other than that it’s a fun and enlightening read.
My rating: 7 out 10.
Next up for me: ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ by Atul Gawande.
…in the NY Times today in an Op-Ed that can be real in full HERE.
The Harvard economist states the obvious – that in Obama’s budget there’s unbelievably high deficits for as far as the eye can see, and that it’s just not a sustainable path to take. Here’s an excerpt:
The troubling feature of Mr. Obama’s budget is that it fails to return the federal government to manageable budget deficits, even as the wars wind down and the economy recovers from the recession. According to the administration’s own numbers, the budget deficit under the president’s proposed policies will never fall below 3.6 percent of G.D.P. By 2020, the end of the planning horizon, it will be 4.2 percent and rising.
As a result, the government’s debts will grow faster than the economy. The administration projects that the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio will rise in each of the next 10 years. By 2020, the government’s debts will equal 77.2 percent of G.D.P. This level of indebtedness has not been seen since 1950, in the aftermath of the borrowing to finance World War II.
Making matters worse, these bleak budget projections are based on relatively optimistic economic assumptions. The administration forecasts economic growth of 3.0 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2010, followed by 4.3 percent the next year. By contrast, the Congressional Budget Office predicts growth of 2.1 percent and 2.4 percent for these two years. Lower growth would mean less tax revenue, larger budget deficits and a more rapidly increasing debt-to-G.D.P. ratio.
…for winning the America’s Cup!
They defeated the two-time defending Swiss team in two straight races. After 15 years, the America’s Cup is coming back home…
Several European countries have been running unsustainable deficits for years while overtaxing and overburdening their economies. It could have devastating consequences very soon.
Bringing several countries into the European Union and allowing many of them to share a common currency was for many reasons a good idea. However, it might now all be unraveling at a fast rate of speed.
Here’s the WSJ’s take on it: HERE, and the Financial Times covers it HERE.
Greece’s economy is in trouble…BIG trouble.
The benefit of having a single currency is there’s no transition costs to go from one currency region to another. That works really well in the United States.
The downside is that you have to value that currency over a whole region. If one part of the area heats up and another is in recession, you’re screwed. If you devalue the currency to help the recession area, you’re going to have a lot of inflation in the heated area.
In the U.S., labor markets are very dynamic. If one part heats up, people can easily move there so unemployment is pretty evenly spread out. In Europe, you have big cultural differences between regions. If the economy bottoms out in Greece, it’s hard for many people to simply move to England where there might be more jobs.
The systemic problem that Europe has had for a long time is its chosen slow growth economic models where businesses have it hard as it is. Unemployment levels tend to always be high. The economies are not very dynamic. And now in this economic crunch, a country like Greece might be on the verge of economic collapse.
The richer countries in Europe will come in to help, but none of them are in great economic condition at the moment. Hopefully this mess won’t bring the world economy down again. But in the end we might see fewer countries living off the Euro…
There’s a very interesting article in Metro which can be read in full HERE. It explains what the best jobs at Carnegie Hall are, and they’re certainly not playing the cello on stage.
The person who oversees props makes over $500k a year. The carpenters/electricians make about $430k a year.
The theatre director? $946k a year.
The majority of the expenses at Carnegie Hall are paid by the tax payers.
That’s the power of unions working for you.
Oh by the way, they’re also taking the money from you to pay for it…
I could go on for decades about the reasons why Obama’s new budget proposal is highly irresponsible. But instead of focusing on the insane amount of spending and the shocking deficit levels, I’m going to focus on one of the few things that Obama actually cut.
Barack Obama, in his infinite wisdom, cut the one program that truly gives us a chance at near unlimited amounts of clean energy fuel.
It’s not a coincidence that countries like Russia, China, and India will be racing to the moon this century. They’re not going for the good of science. They’re not going for the sake of national pride. They’re not going to push the limits of technology.
They’re all going for helium-3.
Helium-3 is a non-radioactive isotope that is made out of two protons and one neutron. While it’s hard to find on Earth, it’s scattered all over the moon. It is the magic fuel that we’ll need soon.
No matter how deeply some people in this country and Western Europe want to hug big windmills, our future energy source will not come from thousand-year-old technology. It will come from nuclear fusion reactors. This reality might be 50 years away, or it could be half of that. That’s why it’s so important for us to start preparing now.
One space shuttle full of helium-3 would be enough to power the United States for one year. If we have to buy this stuff off of the Russians, not only will it cost us hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars, it would put our entire future energy supply at risk.
If Obama really wanted to save the planet from excess CO2 emissions, he wouldn’t cut the one thing that actually gives us hope for clean, abundant energy. The President explodes the budget and deficit for as far as the eye can see, and he cuts the one thing that is most needed – our moon program.
Bad move Barack Obama. Stupid. Short-sighted. Naive. Unbelievable.
Perhaps the President needs to focus less on spending all future generation’s wealth today, and needs to start focusing on what’s ahead. Put down the law book and pick up a science magazine for a change…
Sarah Palin addressed the Tea Party tonight in Nashville. I guess the speech was vintage Palin, heavy on headlines, short on details.
I’m not a big Palin fan for a few reasons. Although she understands that free markets are what have enabled the civilized world to create wealth, I don’t believe she understands the specifics of the economics behind it. I also believe she’s too divisive an individual to gain broad national support. I think the Republican party also needs someone who’s more moderate on social issues such as gay rights.
But she did her thing, to much applause. Ten seconds after the speech was done, Bob Shrum on MSNBC called her a ‘merchant of hate.’ Thankfully Neal Boortz called him out on the air telling him to his face that he needs to take off his mic and go home because he just lost any credibility he ever had.
The Republicans need to find someone more moderate and more liked than Sarah Palin. She has her role to fill, but I hope it’s not as one of the contenders for the 2012 Republican nomination. I hope the tea party movement continues to grow however, because at its core is a huge disappointment in government for running this nation into financial ruin.
Best Palin line of the night, talking about the war on terror:
“To win that war we need a Commander-in-Chief and not a law professor standing at the lectern.”
Yesterday, Mikey and I spent the afternoon auditioning people for our upcoming short film. It’s always a fun process.
We had an interesting conversation with one actor from Britain. He said that in the U.K. to be considered an ‘actor,’ one had to have a drama degree and belong to various acting organizations. Here in the U.S. you just need a headshot.
How true. While the lack of constraints might make the American acting world more dynamic, it also allows for an enormous range in acting skill. While there are some people that absolutely blow you away, there are others that are actors in name only.
But it’s an enormous amount of fun to have people come in and read your work. Good actors bring a lot to each character. It’s really cool to see how each one can bring something different…
